The Strange Feeling..........

[Kensai]

Thats very true KU.

 

Take Care.

[shotochem]

You were in "The Zone", it happens not only in MA but other sports and activities as well. I wish I could make it happen at will.

[Kensai]

Shotochem, I think Ki use in martial arts is a little different to the "zone". But I do understand what you mean. We all have Ki, but very few of us know that we have it and even less know how to use it.

 

Take Care

[ckdstudent]

All that I've seen of Ki is good biomechanics. Don't get me wrong, its still impressive, but there's nothing particularly mystical about it other than a pure knowledge of how the human body works.

 

Same with 'secret breathing' in Aikido, I've seen it done, and again it works simply because the guy knows what he's doing and has done it so many times that he doesn't even need to pause to measure up his partner, its become purely instinctive.

[JerryLove]

There is definatly a Qi/Ki which is not "biomechanics". Unfortunately, there are also trick of leverage, changes of intent (Yi), physical conditionsing, biomechanics, and just plain untruths that also get chalked up to "Qi".

 

It's easy amist such noise to miss the signal. I've done enough double-blind, no-contact work to establish for myself it's reality. How much the reality matches the claim I have not had proven to my satisfaction s of yet.

[ckdstudent]

I'm not unwilling to believe in chi, I just know a fair amount of biomechanics, physics, and a few other fields. If anyone can give me solid evidence of Chi I'll quite happily believe them. Unfortunately while I've seen some amazing things every one of them is one that I can understand the principles behind, and see why it works.

[JerryLove]

I spent most of my martial arts life in the exact same boat; and you are probibly in the position I am. That said, with the information availably, you are of an opinion that I entirely support.

 

I had / have seen many of the Chi tricks. Some I could see the biomechanics of, some I chalked up to psycosematics (and some certainly are). I rolled by eyes at qigong person after qigong person who spoke at length of their abilitys, but who had limited demonstrations.

 

What finally changed that was my instructor dragging me, kicking and screaming (metaphorically), to our schools "qigong healing workshop". I followed what we were told, tried all the imagery, felt the sensations... But that could be psycosematic (I was giving a good-faith effort to believe it).

 

So, armed with my qi skills in hand, I devised a double-blind test. The qigong healing works by "scannig" your subject... finding areas the deel "wrong" (warm, cold, dry, wet, tingly, etc), and fixing them. So for my double blind test, I decided to enlist some non-martial artist (mostly random mmbers of my extende family). I would have them sit and relax; I would scan them and get a firm idea in my head of exactly what was wrong and where; I would then fix it as best I could and get a firm idea in my head of how well I had made it go. I even wrote down my thoughts on some occasions (normally, I trust myself not to lie to me, so I did not always). Afterwards, I would ask them what they had felt before, during, and after the work. I was very careful not to ask leading questions.

 

My results were that I did miss things. There were hurts I did not find. OTOH, I never found something in error. If I felt a problem, they felt the problem either from before I started work, or when I started workin on it. I was also accurate in weather I had been successful in fixing it. There were no false positives, and there were no wrong impressions of success.

 

It's also worth pointin out that I did the healing behind them, I did not really preface them with what I was planning ("can I try someing? Sit there."). There is no actual contact in the healing process; at east one person's visual perception wa actively wrong (she said I was over on her right and she felt the sensations / pain on her left... but I had in-fact been on her left and she didn't see where I was correctly).

 

I've done this experiment around a dozen times, never a false positive, and yes, I almost always find something.

[shotochem]

Jerry, I find myself the same as TDK, I have no problem with believing Chi as long as I have a reasonable cause to. I am neither condemming it or supporting it, I just havent seen it. If you could recommend some reading materials on the subject with as little mystery and folklore as possible I would give it a good read. Hence my signature.....

[ckdstudent]

TDK? Who's TDK?

 

I've had the reiki and shiatsu things done to me, and never gained anything from them. It may be because I'm too sceptical for it to benefit me, but this was by people who'd reportedly 'healed' several people I know very effectively.

[KU]

I'm not unwilling to believe in chi, I just know a fair amount of biomechanics, physics, and a few other fields. If anyone can give me solid evidence of Chi I'll quite happily believe them. Unfortunately while I've seen some amazing things every one of them is one that I can understand the principles behind, and see why it works.

I can fully understand what you mean I was the same myself however, in recent years my skepticism has given way to (I my opinion) some overwhelming experiences, things that I cannot dispute. So I have now stopped analyzing everything I can’t explain using science, this leaves me a lot more open minded. Needless to say I believe chi to be very real but I can see how people could think it’s not, it’s something you have to experience for yourself.